(1) Field of the Invention
This invention relates to silver halide photographic light-sensitive materials (hereinafter referred to as "photographic light-sensitive materials"), more particularly, to high-speed photographic light-sensitive materials which exhibit improved granularity, gradation and rate of development.
(2) Description of the Prior Art
In general, with silver halide photographic light-sensitive materials, increasing iodide content is desirable to make the sensitivity high. This is principally due to increased absorptivity of blue light by shifting the range of the wavelength in which the materials are light-sensitive to the longer wavelength side. However, increase of the iodide content causes a disadvantage, namely a reduction in of the rate of development. In such a situation although good granularity is obtained when an ordinary developing solution is used, good granularity and little change in sensitivity and the like due to developing solution temperature cannot be obtained when a developing solution containing a dialdehyde hardener is used since infectious development occurs. It is known that the addition of a nonion surface-active agent having a polyoxyethylene chain per a molecule as described in British Patent No. 861134 and German Patent No. 1422809 is effective for improving the delay of the rate of development resulting from increase of iodide content but often causes deterioration of granularity and, when the developing solution containing dialdehyde hardener is used, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Disclosure No. 76743/1985, causes a pressure effect or pressure fog in the developing solution (so-called rollermark). Moreover, in order to prevent infectious development from occurring in a developing solution, various techniques have been disclosed and are described below:
For instance, the prevention of yellow fog by the addition of nitron salt, 1,4-diphenyl-3,5-endoanilin-4,5-dihydro-2,4-triazole, or 3,5,6-triphenyl-2,3,5,6-tetrazabicyclo(2,1,1)hexlen is described in Japanese Patent Publication No. 28691/1977 and RD-18431, page 434, the improvement of the change in sensitivity and the like depending on processing temperature (hereinafter referred to as dependence on processing temperature") by the addition of mesoiontriazolium compound other than nitron is described in Japanese Patent Disclosure Nos. 87322/1985, 117240/1985 and 122936/1985, the prevention of fog by mercapto compounds and benzotriazole compounds is described in US Patent Nos. 3954474, 3982947 and Japanese Patent Publication No. 28660/1977, the prevention of fog occurring in a color developing solution by blue spectral sensitization dye is described in US Patent Nos. 2131038 and 3930860 and Japanese Patent Disclosure Nos. 61519/1979 and 119917/1980, and the improvement of the dependence on processing temperature by some blue spectral sensitization dyes is described in Japanese Patent Disclosure Nos. 55426/1984 and 165049/1984. However, these methods have disadvantages such as desensitization and pressure fog.
For example, although mesoiontriazolium compound has improved dependence on processing temperature, it has large desensitizing effect (it also exhibits large desensitizing effect when a developing solution containing no dialdehyde is used). Mercapto compounds have large desensitizing effect in comparison with the dependence on the processing temperature thereof. The blue-light spectral sensitization dye increases pressure fog.